


Safeword

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drama, During Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-15
Updated: 2006-08-15
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: When it's just him and Dean, Sam thinks that they're Nowhere.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

**safeword.**  
Supernatural. Sam/Dean. Light R. Last time, I promised happy Wincest, eventually. This may or may not be it.  
  
  
**1:**  
  
Sometimes, it’s easier to think of words like points on a map, somewhere he could trace a crooked, highway-shaped line to if he really wanted.  
  
Elsewhere is the place Sam finds himself with his family. They don’t really fit in Anywhere, and it’s almost more a state than just a pinprick in the atlas. Normal is where he’s been headed all his life, or at least where he’s been trying to get, only to be dragged on another detour road by Dad and Dean anytime he gets close. It’s a distance divided by zero, undefined, almost there but not quite.  
  
When it’s just him and Dean, Sam thinks that they’re Nowhere. Just the two of them and the world goes away, shrinks places to moments and anything that matters to a messy hotel bed. Later, they pull onto the highway and head east toward Somewhere, and Sam realizes he wants to turn back.  
  
  
**2:**  
  
Sometimes, it’s easier to talk without really taking. Stupid jokes, dull jabs, just enough to keep the silence from driving them completely insane, just enough to fill the gaps between A-sides and B-sides, just enough to remember little things, the memories that don’t hurt.  
  
Sometimes, that lasts. He puts on a smile for his brother and keeps the chatter going, because it feels like a right turn toward Normal.  
  
  
**3:**  
  
  
Sometimes, it’s easier not to speak at all. It makes better sense.  
  
More often than not, they use actual words for banter and business, for those comments that make Dean who he is, and for the who what where why of their current cases. The important things they don’t say out loud, can’t, because it puts Normal too far into the rearview for comfort.  
  
Be careful, beg Sam’s fingertips as they patch up a new wound on his brother’s back.  
  
I love you, says a sleeping arm draped across his shoulders one night when Sammy’s still a kid and he curls up under Dean’s blankets after a nightmare.   
  
Sometimes, things get lost in translation, misread thanks to the crooked typeset, blurred behind a shimmer of smoke. Like on the night that Dean blocks the door to Sam’s room to keep his brother from running to California, when he means to beg, _Don’t go_ , but Sam sees it as an attack and hits him instead, a punch he didn’t see coming that leaves his jaw sore for a week. _Still glad you taught me that?_ He flexes his hand and rubs his knuckles gingerly, then walks out and doesn’t look back.  
  
It gets worse when they can’t see. Dean only calls once, ever, but he can’t think of anything to say, and Sam reads the silence as spite. He hangs up with an out-loud, “Fuck you,” and then blocks the number.  
  
Other times, it’s just the opposite, almost too easy to understand, and they learn not to care.  
  
_You left me,_ Dean accuses, mouth on Sam’s throat. _Just wanted you safe._ He traces an angry scar over his brother’s jugular, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. A real bitch of a vampire gave this to Sam the week before he turned seventeen, and Dean never got over that attack, not really. He still dreams about it sometimes and—  
  
 

_you left._

  
Sam grapples for something to hold onto, grips Dean’s forearm just a little too hard. It reads like an apology. _So sorry._ He closes his eyes and squeezes them shut and bitten-down nails leave little crescents on his brother’s skin and he starts to shake.  
  
A moment of clarity, and they know. They’ll always fight together, as a team. Someday, they’ll fall together, covering each other’s backs. They have no illusions about their own mortality. Everything dies eventually, and anything that doesn’t should. They know this.  
  
And they move and they break together, holding on tight and leaving pale bruises in their wake. It’s like an agreement, an understanding. _Never again. Never leave again._  
  
  
**4:**  
  
“How did we get here?”  
  
Sam lies on his back on the hood of the Chevy, right arm lazily draped over his eyes to keep the sun out. He never liked this state much, wherever the hell they are, and right now, lost, he’s liking it even less.  
  
Dean looks up from the tattered map he’s been trying to read for the past half hour, and he stares at his brother like there’s more to that question than the spoken words. Maybe there is. He cracks a smile. “Sixty-six west and too far south on the highway to Hell.”  
  
Sam nods like that makes sense and then tips his head back to look at the sky. He doesn’t need to say anything else.


End file.
